In-flight Wi-Fi

The airlines with widespread Wi-Fi

MOST business travellers rely on good internet connections. That's why they buy wireless modems, stay at hotels offering free wireless internet, and want Wi-Fi access on trains and planes. But so far, in-flight wireless has been slow, unreliable and unpopular. Train wireless is often even worse. Now a new study (pdf) from RouteHappy, a flight-search site, has found that just 38% of flights within the US offer Wi-Fi; those flights account for just 44% of aggregate domestic flight time.

Delta, Southwest, and US Airways have the most flights with Wi-Fi, according to the report. But that doesn't mean they're necessarily the best airlines for internet service. Virgin America, which is much smaller, offers internet on all its flights. (That could be one reason why it scores such high marks for customer satisfaction.) AirTran, which is being absorbed into Southwest, does the same. Virgin also offers power outlets at every seat, the only American airline to do so. Southwest offers Wi-Fi on 74% of its flights, and expects to offer it on all flights soon.

But after Southwest/AirTran and Virgin, the availability of Wi-Fi drops off significantly. Delta offers Wi-Fi on about 65% of its flights; it's the only one of America's big full-service airlines to do so on more than half of its services. US Airways and American trail behind; United, which wants to offer satellite-based Wi-Fi, is still waiting for approval from regulators before it moves forward with further installations. It offers internet on almost none of its flights.

RouteHappy's full report has many more facts and figures; it's worth a look. Especially interesting is the calculation of when Wi-Fi is "worth it"—ie, when there's enough room to open your laptop and enough time to use it. I'll also be taking a peek at RouteHappy itself in the upcoming weeks—presumably, that's exactly what its team was hoping for when they decided to invest in this study.

In the meantime, the lesson here is that if you want to use your laptop to access the internet on a long cross-country flight, you can't miss with Virgin America.

The WI-FI widespread access could indeed be one of the criterion applied by the business travellers (and not only) when choosing the airline company for their flight, since this would allow simplified access to online meetings and so on. However, beside this, it could not be the single judgemental criterion on an airline company's services. Safety comes first too.
See this to find out more on Internet safety : http://www.straformation.fr/Informatique/proteger-securiser-son-pc

If you think about it this makes sense: Business travelers can usually expense the 20 EUR, or some such absurdity, which some places charge for 24 hours of Internet access. OTOH: Trying to charge the more frugal traveler won't work. They'll just seek out a bar, or coffee shop that offers free WiFi. So why don't offer it for free in the first place?